MOURINHO WAS STUNNED BY CHELSEA SET-UP
Abramovich didn't know much about football
By David Harrison, 20/02/2010
WHEN Jose Mourinho took his first steps inside the Chelsea training camp, he could not believe his eyes. And that was before he had met players he regarded as sub-standard.
He entered the changing-room and had to hang his clothes on a nail hammered into the wall.
His first-team squad were going their routines on a school playing-field.
He was staggered that a club dripping in so much wealth had not put in place what he regarded as basic essentials.
And for that he pointed an accusing finger at Chelsea's moneybags owner Roman Abramovich.
ABRAMOVICH: Got it wrongMourinho said: "It's more possible to win with the right set-up and right conditions and support than by spending money.
"Mr Abramovich was different. He's someone who'd only been in football a short time.
"He didn't know much about it, so much so that when he bought the club, the first thing he did was to buy players.
"And it was only after that that he built the best training- ground in the world.
"If he'd known much about football, the moment he bought the club he would have started building the training-ground.
"When we arrived at Chelsea in 2004, we trained on a school field and hung our clothes on a peg made of a nail in the changing-room.
"The Chelsea of today, with much more money than my previous club Porto had, is a consequence of what developed.
"They went from a school field with nails for pegs to the best training camp in the world, from badly chosen players to well chosen ones, from players who came and went every season to a team which has been the same since 2005."
There will a warm handshake for the Russian oligarch when Mourinho meets him again this week for the Champions League showdown between Inter Milan and Chelsea.
The Portuguese coach said of the man who controversially got rid of him two and a half years ago: "He's someone with whom I always had a good relationship and which is still good, without any kind of problem."
But he does not rate Abramovich as his top employer - and nor does he favour his current boss, Inter president Massimo Moratti, with whom he has clashed constantly during his successful reign at the Italian club.
The "chosen one" in Jose's world is Porto president Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, who gave him his head and almost full control of the club.
Mourinho said: "The Porto president is the best president you could work with.
"It is because he knows where he has to be, when to be there, what to say, when to say it. He knows everything.
"He's the perfect president. He gave me all the conditions I asked for and his full support.
"For a coach who is a leader, having a president who is adapted to your mentality and your style of action makes things much easier.
"It was very easy to work with Mr Pinto da Costa.
"Porto was the perfect example of how to build a team. The best time of my career was the two full years I spent at Porto."
If that sends an advanced signal of intent to Liverpool, Manchester City or any other Premier League club who want to employ him next season, then Mourinho would not want it any other way.
Nor will the self-styled "Special One" be silenced on any other matters, especially when it comes to applauding his own achievements.
He reckons his record of winning five league titles in three countries makes him the outstanding coach of his generation - better even than Sir Alex Ferguson.
Reality
Mourinho told the Portuguese media: "It's one thing to win five championships in one country and another to win five championships in three different countries. It's more difficult.
"Being a 'Special One' is to do with having won the league at a club (Chelsea) which hadn't won it for 50 years.
"The 'Special One' is adapted to professional reality.
"If you got there and ended up second, third or fourth, as others have, there would be nothing special about it."
And in a thinly veiled attack on Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger's lack of recent success, Mourinho said: "Inter, like all my teams, win more times than others, score more goals, concede less goals, win more titles and sometimes achieve incredible results.
"They play badly? Look at England, where there are teams who play very well and haven't won anything for years."
Mourinho now claims he was responsible for the rise of African players in Europe, having brought Ivorian Didier Drogba and Ghanaian Michael Essien to Chelsea.
He said: "There have always been Africans playing in the main European leagues. But I don't know if I'm wrong in saying that I was one of the first to decide that African players have the quality to play in big clubs.
"How many African players were there playing in big clubs? Few.
"And suddenly Chelsea made millionaire signings at the time, Essien and Drogba, who proved to everyone that African players had the ability to play at the highest level.
"Then afterwards Barcelona signed Toure, Real Madrid signed Diarra, Arsenal signed Adebayor.
"Within a few years players playing in the African Cup of Nations went from being unknown or little known to joining big clubs, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, Real Madrid."
English football has had a Mourinho-shaped hole in it since he departed Stamford Bridge in September 2007.
But it will reverberate again to his verbal outpourings over the next three weeks as he squares up to his former club.
And if his would-be bosses at either Eastlands or Anfield are left in any doubt, then his message is clear.
He does it his way or not at all.
ოჰ რა ეროგანტი, ქოქი ბასტარდია, მაგრამ რა მაგარია ...
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Chelsea Football Club, Keep The Blue Flag Flying High
